In a rare show of bipartisan agreement, both Democrats and Republicans in Georgia are urging state election officials to revert to hand-marked paper ballots. This unified call comes amid growing concerns over the security and accuracy of the current voting system, which relies on ballot-marking devices.
Morgan County Democratic Party Chairwoman Jeanne Dufort has submitted a petition to the State Election Board (SEB), advocating for the use of the Dominion 5.5-A voting system in its standard configuration: hand-marked ballots tabulated by precinct and central scanners, with touchscreen units reserved for voters needing assistive technology.
“Securing our elections should transcend party lines,” Dufort stated. “Hand-marked ballots provide a clear paper trail that reflects voters’ true intentions.”
This call is echoed by Republican leaders, including Cobb County Republican Chairwoman Salleigh Grubbs, who has voiced concerns about unresolved security vulnerabilities in the current system. “We have not had the machines updated with the security patches, it was too late to do it, Raffensperger said that. He has chosen not to do the things that needed to be done to secure the election so from that perspective, I support paper ballots,” Grubbs said.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger acknowledged these vulnerabilities but indicated that necessary updates could not be implemented until after the November 2024 election. The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a report in 2022 acknowledging “vulnerabilities affecting versions of the Dominion Voting Systems Democracy Suite ImageCast X, which is an in-person voting system used to allow voters to mark their ballot.” CISA continued that the vulnerabilities “present risks that should be mitigated as soon as possible,” but said the agency had “no evidence that these vulnerabilities have been exploited in any elections.”
The push for hand-marked ballots follows a Supreme Court decision and ongoing litigation in Curling v. Raffensperger, which challenges the current voting system’s reliability. Both sides agree that a return to paper ballots would mitigate risks and restore voter confidence in the election process. Dufort said in an email to the State Election Board that the current system is “infeasible” given “known unmitigated vulnerabilities.”
